Posting Towards Gomorrah

[nononono]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Were you here when Spanky divulged that he likes to hit on 16 year old girls?

It was by far and away the most revealing element of the Foley scandal.

Oh, Spanky, say it isn't so.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Spanky
I challenge anyone to find a better political discussion board than this one. This one is awesome. It is the perfect balance of facts and emotional attacks. For a while it was getting little high brow and touchy feely. The moderator (Ty) changed the tone by starting to be nice and polite to everyone, but that has since been rectified. Now the sarcasm and zingers are back. Politics is like sex. It is only fun if it gets a little nasty.

Most boards are just full of emotional baseless attacks (without any substance) or people preaching to the choir, or boring technical discussions. This one has great balance and a great give and take.

Anyway - that is just my opinion


:box:

I have given up on the FB board. It is just too boring. Ty, maybe you could try and spice it up a little like you do this board? When this one gets dull you are good at throwing a piece of meat out. The FB board could definitely use some spice.

I've been struggling with something re. this board for awhile now, and just today got an answer. I think no one will argue that at least half of the Dems who post here are too dumb, and apparently poorly trained in advocacy, to really compete with any of the Reps we let stay.

I've asked myself, why are so many bottom dwellers from their side allowed to stay- why don't the Dems clean their own house and run off some of the poorer examples? Truly, if my issues were being argued as poorly as most of what the Dems put up here, we would have a PM counsel with the substandard poster, and ask him to simply lurk.

Anyway today I got what may be a partial answer:

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release...ease_id=178875

• Republicans Outnumber Democrats Online, According to Nielsen//NetRatings
  
  NEW YORK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- November 01, 2006 -- Nielsen//NetRatings (NASDAQ: NTRT), a global leader in Internet media and market research, announced today that 36.6 percent of U.S. adults online are Republicans, 30.8 percent are Democrats and 17.3 percent are Independents. With campaign Web sites becoming increasingly important to reaching the electorate, candidates need to keep their fingers on the political pulse of the Internet.

So there aren't enough Dems and they can't be as selective- in order to maintain diversity here we have to allow the dullards to stay, is that it?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

So, the Post is running an article about how the culture of corruption alone may be enough to give the Ds the House, even setting aside overwhelming disgust with the Rs performance in Iraq.

Can anyone thing of any scandals or indictments the Post missed? What's amazing to me is the sheer number of little scandals -- even by Washington standards.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Gattigap
I agree it's something of a stupid reason to vote R today, but think of it as a request for an electoral victory lap.

Maybe my point was that people who are excited about Alilo and Roberts are already going to vote Republican. I'm not sure the people who are waivering about it is necessarily going to say to themselves "Oh yeah, Bush just appointed two really conservative white guys to the Supreme Court, I should definitely vote Republican now!"

Unless they think that their votes will be recorded and those who vote against the Party will be punished in the future after Roberts and Alito lead the Court to overturn all civil liberties in the name of security. But really, I think that Orwellian view is not actually realistic.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
.......... that Orwellian ..........

in what sense do you mean Orwellian?

[Replaced_Texan]

The only race I really care about this election season is Texas House 134 between Ellen Cohen and Martha Wong. (Article about the race here.)

I can be persuaded to care more about Texas Congressional District 7, since I hate John Culberson and I rather like Jim Henley a lot. (Spanky would hate him. He's a middle school teacher AND Susan McDougal's brother. Article about him here)

I figure that after Barbara Ann Radnofsky (why couldn't she have waited two years and gone after Cornyn? He's much more of an objectionable Republican.) loses to KBH, she'll retrench and go after Culberson in 2008.

But in my heart of hearts, I'll be happy enough if Ellen Cohen beats the pants off of Martha Wong. That's all I really ask for this election season. Everything else is just gravy.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Spanky
... The employees that work for me were my gain and the teaching profession's loss. They were great teachers ....

How else do we determine which teachers are doing a good job and which teachers aren't?

I take it from these statements the teachers who work for you gave you records of the testing results of their classes from their teaching days? Is not, how can you assert they were good teachers?

I happen to think there are lots of ways of identifying good teachers There are also lots of ways to define a good teacher beyond his ability to teach an immediate subject in such a way that his students can regurgitate it on a multiple choice test.

You look at tenure and see a mechanism to keep the lazy employed. I look at tenure and see a millenium-old tradition that protects professional from the whims of stupid people.

(I'm suggesting you are stupid; I'm suggesting that the woman who my senior year in high school keep writing to the school board and the local paper demanding the head of my English teacher for daring to teach -- OMG -- 1984 (it has sex in it, you may recall) is stupid. Lest you think this is purely an anti-conservative bias, she also taught the KJV of Genesis in class. In a less conservative town, I could see that causing just as much a stir.)

We are both right; tenure does both of these things. We just each find the respective aspects of tenure more important. I'm willing to accept that a few bad apples will get to stay. You're willing to accept that teachers will be subject to academic censorship by wingnuts.

I happen to think there is a middle ground. I think that lengthening the time before granting tenure to 6 or 8 years would eliminate almost all the bad apples. I'd also be in favor of expanding somewhat the professional negligence type grounds for firing teachers post tenure (and pre-tenure even more). Right now, in most jurisdictions, you have to be caught doing something illegal or just stop coming to work to get fired. I can see a system of low test scores combined with low teacher evaluations leading to dismissal.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Maybe my point was that people who are excited about Alilo and Roberts are already going to vote Republican.

Mona Charen's real point was that Republicans should make sure to vote.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
The only race I really care about this election season is Texas House 134 between Ellen Cohen and Martha Wong. (Article about the race here.)

I can be persuaded to care more about Texas Congressional District 7, since I hate John Culberson and I rather like Jim Henley a lot. (Spanky would hate him. He's a middle school teacher AND Susan McDougal's brother. Article about him here)

I figure that after Barbara Ann Radnofsky (why couldn't she have waited two years and gone after Cornyn? He's much more of an objectionable Republican.) loses to KBH, she'll retrench and go after Culberson in 2008.

But in my heart of hearts, I'll be happy enough if Ellen Cohen beats the pants off of Martha Wong. That's all I really ask for this election season. Everything else is just gravy.

Martha Wong losing her pants would be the "little bit nasty" part here?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
The only race I really care about this election season is Texas House 134 between Ellen Cohen and Martha Wong. (Article about the race here.)

I can be persuaded to care more about Texas Congressional District 7, since I hate John Culberson and I rather like Jim Henley a lot. (Spanky would hate him. He's a middle school teacher AND Susan McDougal's brother. Article about him here)

I figure that after Barbara Ann Radnofsky (why couldn't she have waited two years and gone after Cornyn? He's much more of an objectionable Republican.) loses to KBH, she'll retrench and go after Culberson in 2008.

But in my heart of hearts, I'll be happy enough if Ellen Cohen beats the pants off of Martha Wong. That's all I really ask for this election season. Everything else is just gravy.

My most closely followed race this season is John Hall versus Sue Kelly in the NY 19th. It includes the then ultra-Republican area I grew up in. The idea that it may be represented by one of the members of Orleans is just amazin'.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
in what sense do you mean Orwellian?

In the talking pig sense, of course. Fourrrr legggs baaaaaaaaaaaaaad; two leggs betterrrrrrrrrrr.

Or maybe I mean to ridicule the radical left that sees in the Bush administration the beginings of Big Brother, including conspiracy theorists who might believe that now that the Plutocrats have control of the Supreme Court, the secret cameras hidden in the Diebold (R) voting machines that record your face and your vote will be used by the Homeland Security Thought Police as evidence of your disloyalty to the State.

I think that vision is a little extreme. I may change my mind after the 2008 election, but for now I have faith.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Maybe my point was that people who are excited about Alilo and Roberts are already going to vote Republican. I'm not sure the people who are waivering about it is necessarily going to say to themselves "Oh yeah, Bush just appointed two really conservative white guys to the Supreme Court, I should definitely vote Republican now!"

Unless they think that their votes will be recorded and those who vote against the Party will be punished in the future after Roberts and Alito lead the Court to overturn all civil liberties in the name of security. But really, I think that Orwellian view is not actually realistic.

In order for Bush's appointments to get through the Republicans need to control the Senate.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
In the talking pig sense, of course. Fourrrr legggs baaaaaaaaaaaaaad; two leggs betterrrrrrrrrrr.

Or maybe I mean to ridicule the radical left that sees in the Bush administration the beginings of Big Brother, including conspiracy theorists who might believe that now that the Plutocrats have control of the Supreme Court, the secret cameras hidden in the Diebold (R) voting machines that record your face and your vote will be used by the Homeland Security Thought Police as evidence of your disloyalty to the State.

I think that vision is a little extreme. I may change my mind after the 2008 election, but for now I have faith.

I assumed you meant 1984-ish, not Animal Farm. But since people also make allusions to how poor working people are becoming, I left open the possibility you meant in the Keep the Aspidistra Flying sense.

When i think of the future I see more the movie Brazil- the technology is more up to date, there are terrorists bombing, intrusive government ("suspects will now be charged for their interrogations") and general bureacratic incompetance.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Mona Charen's real point was that Republicans should make sure to vote.

Of course, I didn't read the original article, just what Spanky posted, but I'll point to the subject line of this (and the original) post, which doesn't say "8 Reasons Republicans Should Vote" or even "8 Reasons to Vote, Republican."

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
In order for Bush's appointments to get through the Republicans need to control the Senate.

More accurately, Bush needs to control the Senate. Even if the Rs keep the Senate, you've got a lot of Rs running against Bush at this point. Those coming up for election in 2 years will take note and try to develop a record of independence.